QinetiQ awarded £33m contract to provide synthetic air and land mission training

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Farnborough, 11 August 2014: QinetiQ, the defence, aerospace and security company, has been awarded a £33m contract for the continued provision of synthetic air and land mission training for the UK military. The training programme, developed over the last five years by QinetiQ with the Ministry of Defence (MOD), will take place at the Air Battlespace Training Centre at RAF Waddington in Lincoln, UK. This contract will run for five years.

QinetiQ will provide continued provision of synthetic air and land mission training for UK military

The Distributed Synthetic Air Land Training 2 (DSALT2) programme will be provided, maintained and supported by QinetiQ’s Training business on behalf of the UK Defence Equipment & Support organisation, with support from sub-contractors Boeing and Plexsys, amongst others.

For five years QinetiQ, in partnership with the MOD, has developed this world-class innovative service, and established the premier UK joint-collective synthetic mission training centre, providing pre-deployment training to front-line personnel during Air-Land operations.

DSALT2 is capable of reconfiguration and the training will evolve over the next five years to meet the future operational needs of the military.

Russ Cole, Flight Simulation and Synthetic Trainers Team Leader at MOD's Defence Equipment and Support, said: "Simulation and synthetic training is an extremely important part of training our modern Armed Forces and, although it will never fully replace live training, the ability to practice and train in highly realistic but safe environments is a vital, life-saving capability essential to effective mission preparation."

QinetiQ will provide continued provision of synthetic air and land mission training for UK military

Miles Adcock, MD for QinetiQ Training, said: “We are delighted to have secured this contract with the MOD. Our training provides the RAF and Army with a realistic representation of the operating environment they will face, which is critical to achieving mission success. It allows trainees across the UK to train together in the same mission, in real time, with our Coalition partners across the globe. We train the UK Armed Forces in the safe and effective employment of weapons systems available in an Air-Land battle, including artillery, mortars, attack helicopters, fixed wing and unmanned aircraft. Such realistic conditions are not usually available outside actual operations and our training provides vital preparation ahead of missions.”

The facilities at RAF Waddington include a number of simulators , including domes and tents to accommodate a variety of military aircraft and teams. Generic virtual role-playing desktop simulators, computer generated forces workstations and a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle workstation are also located at the facility, supporting the staff instructors.

An example of training delivered at this facility is the Steel Dragon training exercise, which provides trainees with experience of a realistic, high threat environment, to which they must respond with appropriate operational tactics, techniques and procedures. The QinetiQ team delivers networks, architectures and security technologies that enable mission training to take place at different locations across the country and the globe. The ability to link into live training exercises is also used to improve the training outcome by mixing in synthetic representations of unavailable assets. DSALT2 will continue to deliver immediate and detailed after action review of a training event, displaying the battle-space in 2D and 3D, ensuring key mission and training objectives, and any lessons learned, are seen and debriefed accordingly.

DSALT2 will deliver valuable, relevant, high quality and cost efficient training to ensure the UK’s military forces are well prepared for future operations.

Notes for Editors:

A FTSE250 company, QinetiQ uses its domain knowledge to provide technical support and know-how to customers in the global aerospace, defence and security markets. QinetiQ's unique position enables it to be a trusted partner to government organisations, predominantly in the UK and the US, including defence departments.